Wow! Where has this channel been in my feed for my past 17 years on UA-cam? LOL As a high-school English teacher, I am loving your videos and appreciating the way you make large bodies of research digestible! The importance of explicit instruction is a hobby horse of mine. When I worked in elementary schools, I was involved in math instruction and saw the negative effects of undermining or abandoning traditional instructional methods, so I watched this video even though, in secondary, I no longer teach math. I'm now subscribed. Thanks for sharing!
Perfect Jared - I would be very interested in you having a look at the work of Kapur around productive struggle and see how it sits in relation to this. It is extremely popular in Australia at the moment.
Craig! I've been doing more and more reading on it, and am less and less impressed. It's a good rule of thumb: when 90% of papers on a particular field include the same researcher or his students, we're looking at something less-than-solid. That was basically my PhD: when you analyzed a field like this and eliminated all work that included the 'founder' of the field, then the effect disappeared - I have a sneaking suspicion we'll see the same thing here. LOL - PS - Kapur has now moved onto the 'blame the teacher' model perfected by Dweck. As more and more data is coming out showing it does not work as advertised, his response is "you're doing it wrong." C'est la vie!
Holy geez - exactly as expected: someone did a meta-analysis and separated Kapur papers from all others. When Kapur was incluved, effect size was 0.85. When Kapur wasn;t involved, it was 0.02. If it wasn't so predictable, it'd be depressing: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11423-018-9579-9/tables/3
I'm kind of curious if this topic relates to much of the student-guided learning that I see often. Where students are provided stimulus and expected to learn from open exploring and discovery. I see this a lot, where teachers want to remove the linear instruction and want kids to lean through discovery. Though I have always struggled with how this idea could be better for students. Am I off-base in seeing a connection between the topics in this video and the self-guided learning?
You're spot on - a big aspect of the 'concepts first' argument includes 'self-directed discovery learning'. I always bring it back to cars: do you think discovery-learning would be a meaningful way for 16-year-old kids to learn how to drive? Of course not - because there are clear structures and processes involved with driving. Why would math, reading, science, or any other academic subject be any different?
I talked to a pretty serious researcher about the idea of conflating math with the simple view of reading as you did here - he pretty much said that it isn't accurate as math has a considerable amount of different constructs and there is no empirical support for this distinction as we have seen in the reading field. As a rhetorical device I understand doing this, but this was an interesting point and something to be careful with, though it makes intuitive sense. Thanks for the video though, living in CA I am amazed at how intrenched these ideas are from "top level" people in districts or even the state - as the new CA state standards are, since Jo Boaler was key in that process. Along with other scandals going on down there, Stanford is a blemish on higher ed. I would question anyone coming out of that institution at this point.
'Math' is large - arithmetic is small. The argument is that while reading stops, math continues - ergo, arithmetic might align well with reading, but the large 'maths' do not. I understand the sentiment, but have not seen a shred of data that supports this idea. Nobody (so far as I've seen) has empirical evidence that that comprehension in higher maths somehow transcends the deep embodiment of relevant concepts and algorithms (which is the basis of reading comprehension as well). If there's no evidence supporting it, and no evidence refuting it - I imagine this is a non-empirical distinction: it will boil down to how one chooses to conceptualize each field. This conceptualization will ultimately drive distinctions and interpretations - but can never be proven right or wrong.
PS - I heard a podcast recently about Stanford - was shocked at how strange things are there! I guess all of higher ed is getting a bit kooky, but I think you're right - Stanford is a unique case. I just heard someone (will have to track down who) say something to the extent of "The top universities used to be filled with the best performers - now they're filled with the best manipulators." That's sad.
One slight correction. Education was never better about a decade ago. Since then we've been falling precipitously. Whether it's the math wars, common core, cell phones, or chromebooks, the previous decades of progress have been erased. (Graduation rates aren't a good marker of progress, schools have started handing out diplomas to anyone with a pulse because they get downgraded for low graduation rates.)
Join me LIVE on Zoom later this month (July 22-26th, 2024) as I teach a metacognition course for teens (13-19). Give your teenager a mental advantage that will help them succeed in school and beyond as they discover how to step into the driver's seat of their own mind. Sign up here: www.lmeglobal.net/summer-academy
Wow! Where has this channel been in my feed for my past 17 years on UA-cam? LOL As a high-school English teacher, I am loving your videos and appreciating the way you make large bodies of research digestible! The importance of explicit instruction is a hobby horse of mine. When I worked in elementary schools, I was involved in math instruction and saw the negative effects of undermining or abandoning traditional instructional methods, so I watched this video even though, in secondary, I no longer teach math. I'm now subscribed. Thanks for sharing!
Brilliant as usual Jared! Love the last few minutes, we all need a reminder that schools are better now than they have ever been.
Absolutely brilliant. You explain a difficult topic in a clear and effective way.
Perfect Jared - I would be very interested in you having a look at the work of Kapur around productive struggle and see how it sits in relation to this. It is extremely popular in Australia at the moment.
Craig! I've been doing more and more reading on it, and am less and less impressed. It's a good rule of thumb: when 90% of papers on a particular field include the same researcher or his students, we're looking at something less-than-solid. That was basically my PhD: when you analyzed a field like this and eliminated all work that included the 'founder' of the field, then the effect disappeared - I have a sneaking suspicion we'll see the same thing here. LOL - PS - Kapur has now moved onto the 'blame the teacher' model perfected by Dweck. As more and more data is coming out showing it does not work as advertised, his response is "you're doing it wrong." C'est la vie!
Holy geez - exactly as expected: someone did a meta-analysis and separated Kapur papers from all others. When Kapur was incluved, effect size was 0.85. When Kapur wasn;t involved, it was 0.02. If it wasn't so predictable, it'd be depressing: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11423-018-9579-9/tables/3
That blows my mind!! Thanks for the work mate, really appreciate it! Hope your family is well!!
I'm kind of curious if this topic relates to much of the student-guided learning that I see often. Where students are provided stimulus and expected to learn from open exploring and discovery.
I see this a lot, where teachers want to remove the linear instruction and want kids to lean through discovery. Though I have always struggled with how this idea could be better for students.
Am I off-base in seeing a connection between the topics in this video and the self-guided learning?
You're spot on - a big aspect of the 'concepts first' argument includes 'self-directed discovery learning'. I always bring it back to cars: do you think discovery-learning would be a meaningful way for 16-year-old kids to learn how to drive? Of course not - because there are clear structures and processes involved with driving. Why would math, reading, science, or any other academic subject be any different?
I talked to a pretty serious researcher about the idea of conflating math with the simple view of reading as you did here - he pretty much said that it isn't accurate as math has a considerable amount of different constructs and there is no empirical support for this distinction as we have seen in the reading field. As a rhetorical device I understand doing this, but this was an interesting point and something to be careful with, though it makes intuitive sense. Thanks for the video though, living in CA I am amazed at how intrenched these ideas are from "top level" people in districts or even the state - as the new CA state standards are, since Jo Boaler was key in that process. Along with other scandals going on down there, Stanford is a blemish on higher ed. I would question anyone coming out of that institution at this point.
'Math' is large - arithmetic is small. The argument is that while reading stops, math continues - ergo, arithmetic might align well with reading, but the large 'maths' do not. I understand the sentiment, but have not seen a shred of data that supports this idea. Nobody (so far as I've seen) has empirical evidence that that comprehension in higher maths somehow transcends the deep embodiment of relevant concepts and algorithms (which is the basis of reading comprehension as well). If there's no evidence supporting it, and no evidence refuting it - I imagine this is a non-empirical distinction: it will boil down to how one chooses to conceptualize each field. This conceptualization will ultimately drive distinctions and interpretations - but can never be proven right or wrong.
PS - I heard a podcast recently about Stanford - was shocked at how strange things are there! I guess all of higher ed is getting a bit kooky, but I think you're right - Stanford is a unique case. I just heard someone (will have to track down who) say something to the extent of "The top universities used to be filled with the best performers - now they're filled with the best manipulators." That's sad.
One slight correction. Education was never better about a decade ago. Since then we've been falling precipitously. Whether it's the math wars, common core, cell phones, or chromebooks, the previous decades of progress have been erased. (Graduation rates aren't a good marker of progress, schools have started handing out diplomas to anyone with a pulse because they get downgraded for low graduation rates.)
Can't disagree with this!
Thank you Jared
Join me LIVE on Zoom later this month (July 22-26th, 2024) as I teach a metacognition course for teens (13-19). Give your teenager a mental advantage that will help them succeed in school and beyond as they discover how to step into the driver's seat of their own mind. Sign up here: www.lmeglobal.net/summer-academy